


E

by ashamedbliss, orphan_account



Series: government hooker [3]
Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Assassins & Hitmen, Bodyguard, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Rimming, Spies & Secret Agents, Violence, Weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 22:21:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2789786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashamedbliss/pseuds/ashamedbliss, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All good things must come to an end</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to all the love and support for this one - here's the final installment in the 'government hooker' trilogy, we hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have ♥

The morning air is crisp, a pale blue sky yawning above the dozens of people milling about in their finest black suits and shortest black dresses. The colour is broken up by various flower arrangements, two of which spell the names of those people who used to be closest to Matthew Bellamy.

Aside from Dominic, of course.

“It’s so sad,” Dominic says, eyes scanning across the crowd. His earpiece is in, as one of the many security working the funeral, considering just who the deceased are and who they were mainly friends with. “For Rachel to have just turned on Tom like that, smashing his head in then hanging herself…”

Dominic can barely get the words out, throat thick with grief. “I know I only knew them for a short while, but they seemed such lovely people, so happy together. Wasn’t she pregnant, too?”

“She was.”

Matthew barely moves his mouth to say the words, staring at the freshly packed earth before them with his lips pressed tightly together. They had spent the best part of the morning in a small village church in Oxfordshire, Tom’s part of the country, before stepping out into the churchyard to bury the two coffins side by side. Matthew had watched the lone tear roll down Dominic’s face, but the bodyguard had not moved out of his rigid stance to wipe at it, daring Matthew to make a comment.

Matthew had been one of the pall-bearers for Tom’s coffin. He was the only one who did not cry as he helped lower it into the earth.

Dominic noticed that he did not cry at all.

“Can we go yet?” Matthew asks, with a slight hint of discomfort. Dominic has never heard it from him before. “I just... need to get away from all of this lot. That woman over there, Laura, I know for a fact she hasn’t seen Rachel in three years, and look at her.”

Dominic’s attention is drawn to a woman sobbing loudly into what appears to be her husband’s arms. “Some people show grief in different ways,” he offers.

“Yes, well, some people don’t deserve to show grief at all,” Matthew snaps. He turns, stalking out of the tiny churchyard and onto the rural lane beyond, getting into the driver’s seat of a nondescript Mercedes and not even bothering to check that Dominic’s in the passenger seat before he pulls away and speeds off.

“Are we heading back to London, then?”

They had spent the previous night in a Premier Inn a few miles outside of Oxford. Matthew had drank too much at the bar and tried to make a pass at Dominic. When Dominic had declined, emotionally drained from having to sit through Matthew’s meeting with Tom’s parents, Matthew had surprised him by not simply forcing himself on his bodyguard, or coercing him in some way. Instead, he had smashed a bottle of whiskey against the wall and told Dominic he was worthless.

Needless to say, Matthew had remained as frosty as the morning grass all day. “Yes,” Matthew snaps. “Where else?” And the conversation is closed.

He could have sworn Matthew had been close to Tom, in the few moments he’d spent with the two of them. He even had some faint memory of hearing that he’d slept with Rachel, once. It did seem a little peculiar that he shouldn’t even flinch when confronted with their funeral. But then again, his charge’s emotional variety had always been questionable at best, and the tension rolling off him now was nothing out of the ordinary.

The motorway speeds past the passenger window, and Matthew turns the radio on, but spites Dominic by putting it on Radio 4, a station he knows he hates. Dominic tries to fall asleep against the pillar by his head, but each time his eyes begin to close, Matthew overtakes the vehicle in front in a jerking manoeuvre across all three of the lanes.

“Sorry,” Matthew asks in mock softness. “Were you sleeping?”

Dominic suppresses the urge to roll his eyes, simply deciding to let Matthew work himself out of this funk in his own time. Arguing will get him nowhere, the last six months have taught him that.

“I’m hungry,” Matthew declares soon enough, cutting up a lorry as he sweeps into a service station somewhere on the M25.

“Careful, you almost hit him,” Dominic says, a hand veering towards the wheel as a reflex action. Matthew’s hand bats it back away quick as a flash, bending a finger back without apologising. Dominic doesn’t complain.

They park at a jaunty angle, Matthew neatly slipping a shiny laminated pass behind the windscreen, and he wanders into the services - a rather grimy construction hunched over on the side of the motorway - without so much as a glance over his shoulder to check that Dominic is following.

“Didn’t take you as the kind of guy to go for a McDonalds,” Dominic chides quietly, and Matthew stops short, surveying the food court.

“There isn’t even a Starbucks?” Matthew whines, and it’s the first indication that perhaps his mood is slightly lessening. Dominic wonders distractedly if he’s some kind of Gremlin, getting angry when he’s hungry.

Dominic does a sweep of the food court, not just looking for threats or suspicious activity but also for an establishment Matthew won’t turn his nose up at. “How about Subway?”

Matthew turns his nose up anyway. “I can’t believe you let me stop somewhere that doesn’t have a Pret. Or even a Waitrose, for Christ’s sake.”

Dominic lets the corner of his mouth curl into a smile. “Come on,” he says, leading Matthew towards the sandwich shop. “Let me show you how the other half live, yeah?”

“I’m not sure I want to see, to be honest,” Matthew says, although his nose twitches as they approach the counter. “Wait, do they bake the bread? Something smells nice.”

“That’s the smell of cheap dough and meal deals,” Dominic says quietly. “Hi, I’ll have a Meatball Marinara on six-inch flat bread, cheese and toasted,” Dominic smiles at the young girl taking the orders. He looks to Matthew. “What are you having? My treat.”

“So _generous_ of you,” Matthew grimaces. “Of course. Because you weren’t going to pay when we went to _de Clarice_ last month,” he grumbles, pressing a long finger against the glass partition. “What kind of bread should I have?”

“Italian is nice, flatbread has less calories though.”

Matthew raises an eyebrow at him. “Are you implying something?”

Dominic pinches the bridge of his nose. “God forbid you make something easy for once,” he mutters to himself. “Alright. I’d recommend the teriyaki chicken on Italian, get a footlong if you’re hungry, and it’s nice when it’s warm.”

“Are you saying six inches just isn’t enough, Dominic?”

The girl behind the counter is bright red as she stutters, asking Dominic which salad he wants. Dominic stares at Matthew for a beat longer, before turning a blinding grin to the girl. “Sorry about that, my _boyfriend_ is being incredibly picky today,” he smiles, knowing full well it’ll probably send Matthew back into his funk, but finding himself unable to care.

Matthew grumbles out his order to a second worker as the young girl, still bright red but now smirking slightly, finishes putting the salad in Dominic’s sandwich and he waits to pay for them both. Matthew loads his own up with every available salad option and two different types of sauce. “You never know, Dominic, I may never be treated to this kind of luxury again,” he says loudly at the till as Dominic pays.

“You realise you’re an utter cunt, don’t you?” Dominic hisses as he carries their tray over to a table. He puts it down then sits down himself, yelping as Matthew pinches the side of his neck.

“Don’t you dare talk to me that way,” Matthew whispers harshly in his ear. “Remember who I am.”

Dominic swallows, and pipes down.

They eat their sandwiches in near silence, Dominic looking everywhere apart from the man opposite him as he chews morosely. Out of the corner of his eye he spots a flash of movement as a portly little boy, perhaps seven or eight, scampers around his table like a comet orbiting a planet, a yellow plastic gun in his hand. Dominic’s mouth twitches into a small smile. He notices now what is presumably the boy’s sister, only a toddler, sat in one of the chairs and scrawling away at some colouring book with strokes that are enthusiastic, if not a little erratic. She looks up at him, and smiles in a gap-toothed grin.

“Aw, look at that,” he murmurs, almost thoughtlessly. He forgets, for a moment, that Matthew’s main aim in life is to listen in on unheard thoughts, and raises his gaze to see Matthew scowling.

“Children are disgusting.”

“But look at her, Matt, she’s so cute--”

“Oliver!” A high-pitched voice interrupts, and the boy screeches to a halt in his trainers, scurrying back over to the table. A blonde woman, evidently their mother, looms over them, fuming. “Are you watching your sister? Are you?!”

The boy responds with a pained groan, and scowling, turns to his sister and vindictively aims the gun at her head. He makes a small ‘psssh’ noise, pulling at the fake trigger, and his mother sets off again. Not to mention, the girl has joined the chorus with a round of wailing cries.

Matthew wrinkles his nose in distaste. “You still think they’re cute?”

Dominic rolls his eyes. “That’s bad parenting. The boy isn’t old enough to be looking after the girl anyway, so I would’ve looked after her myself and probably not bought my son a toy gun to play with.”

Matthew’s eyes bulge. “You’ve thought about it, then. Parenting.”

Dom shrugs. “Hasn’t everyone?” he laughs nervously.

“No.”

“Alright then. _Most_ people have thought about it.”

“Well, stop.”

Dominic puts down his sandwich. “Don’t be a prick, Matthew. The one bit of me you haven’t fucked up is my hopes and dreams, soppy as it sounds. You don’t get a say on what I want in life.”

“Why do you suck my cock, then? If you want kids so bad, go and get yourself a bloody girlfriend, don’t hang around me thinking you’ll eventually change my mind, because you won’t.” Matthew crushes his paper up into a ball, standing up and leaning across the table. “This is not a relationship. You’re not my boyfriend, nor will you ever be. Get it into your thick skull.”

Dominic is absolutely sure his face resembles that of a kicked puppy now, but he can’t be bothered to hide his hurt from Matthew anymore. “Alright,” he says, swallowing. He chucks the rest of his sandwich in the bin as he stands, appetite suddenly nowhere to be found. “Let’s go. I want to go to the gym tonight before it closes.”

Matthew furrows his brow slightly as Dominic strides off out of the services, not quite understanding how Dominic just brushed off the rebuttal so easily. “That’s it? You’re not going to cry or throw a tantrum or anything?”

Dominic turns and smiles coldly. “No. I understand. Let’s go.”

They continue the journey in utter silence.

*

“You do still live here, don’t you?”

Dominic shoots him a glance, weighing up whether or not to deign him with a response. “Yes,” he says curtly, the word heavy and acrid in his mouth after having barely breathed for the last hour, let alone spoken. His own little flat peers down at them from the block, unchanged almost from when he first moved in, untouched almost entirely by Matthew’s presence in his life, save for the fact he hardly ever spends a night there anymore. It doesn’t really feel like coming home, now.

Matthew sighs. “God. The East End is still as much of a shit hole as I remember, then.” He glances around suspiciously.

Dominic rolls his eyes, making to get out of the passenger side. A hand on his forearm stops him.

“Dom,” Matthew says softly, perhaps the softest he’s ever heard from him. “I want to apologise for earlier.”

Dominic feels as if his world has just shifted off axis. “You’re... apologising? To me? You never apologise. Not even after the thing with--”

“With the Korean rep, I know, but I’m apologising now. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been such a cunt,” Matthew says, and although he uses that word all the time, Dominic flinches because he’s referring to himself with it for the first time. “How about I take you out to dinner tomorrow? Anywhere you like. _My treat_ , seeing as you treated me today.”

Dominic blinks, concerned that he may have missed a spot of sarcasm, running the sentence through his head again. _No. It’s sincere_. His mouth falls open unconsciously.

He gulps. “I… yeah, that would be good, actually.”

“We’ll go straight after work,” Matthew asserts happily. “What do you fancy?”

“ _de Clarice_? I know we go there all the time, but--”

“But it’s important to you. We’ll go.”

Dominic would never admit it, of course, but his chest is fluttering. He is hardly present as Matthew presses a soft kiss to his lips, and smiles, closing the door and rolling away without a word.

He watches the car crawl all the way down the road, until it’s a speck, then nothing.

*

“But you got steak _last time!_ And the time before that…”

Matthew pouts at him from across the table, as if he’s just had his internet privileges for the week revoked (although no one would do that, really, because he’s _C_ for Christ’s sake and he’d be through the block within minutes). “But it’s _divine_ ,” he groans, a little joking smile creeping onto his face. “I do love a good cut of meat.”

Dominic smirks. “Yes, you’ve said.”

“You know, there’s a brilliant new place around the corner. Turkish cuisine, I believe. We should go. You’d absolutely love the _kofte_. Brilliant stuff.”

“You know any Turkish, then?”

“I do now, actually,” Matthew beams proudly. “I’ve been trying to learn some new ones. Expand my range a little bit more, you know? I do get tired of the same old thing. Did Portuguese too, but that one was easy. I just see it as Spanish with a twist.”

Dominic smiles to himself, sipping on his wine, food already ordered. _de Clarice_ has become a haunt of theirs, reminiscent of the first time Matthew dragged Dominic into his crazy little world. This time, however, it feels a little different. Matthew doesn’t flirt with the waitress, nor does he switch to any other language to do so, nor does he belittle Dominic for his choice of food.

Dominic finds that he’s actually enjoying himself for once. Not just for Matthew’s sake, either; he’s genuinely happy, and he lets that leak into his smile.

“You should smile more often,” Matthew says, wine swirling in his glass as he gestures to Dominic with it. “It really lights up your features. And takes the emphasis away from your ears,” he adds, but he’s smiling over the top of his wine glass, eyes crinkling in the corners.

Just as Dominic makes to reply modestly, the table rumbles with a soft buzz, and Matthew glares down at him mobile phone, sighing and snatching it up. “Sorry about this,” he mumbles, grimacing and typing something back laboriously before firmly holding the off button until the glow on his face disappears. He slips it back into his pocket, and meets Dominic’s eyes with a genial smile.

“You have my full attention.”

Dominic blushes, slightly, because Matthew hasn’t been this interested in him since the first time they visited this restaurant. He wonders idly if his coldness yesterday in the car caused Matthew to think about their relationship because, really, they’d spent the best part of six months side by side now, and most nights are spent in one bed or another, together. Last night excepted, of course. It had been a strange night. Cold. Lonely, really.

“You know, I learnt a few words of Irish a little while ago. I went on a few dates with the Irish girl when I was stationed in Belfast with the Army,” Dominic says, bringing up his past voluntarily for once; neither him nor Matthew enjoy talking about anything but the present.

Matthew’s eyebrows go to his hairline, and a genuine smile broadens across his face. “Really? Show me then.”

“Well,” Dominic says, and he can feel his face heating a little. “ _Mo stór_ means my love, or my treasure. It’s an endearment.”

He expects Matthew to laugh in his face, or tell him his accent’s stupid, or that he could have learnt more than just two poxy words if the girl meant anything to him, but the abuse he’s braced for never comes.

Instead, Matthew’s smile stays solid. “ _Mo stór_ ,” he repeats, meeting Dominic’s eyes. “That’s lovely.”

“...Really? No teasing? Nothing?”

“Dominic!” He chides. “I do give a shit about your achievements, you know. Have a little faith.”

“Since _when_?”

“Since…” he trails off, looking at the floor. “Well I always have, really,” he says tentatively. “I just don’t make a habit of showing it. In my field of work, revealing emotions is hardly an advantageous thing to do. You have to be very good at deception.”

Dominic nods, knowing all too well about masking emotions and feelings. The waitress arrives then with the dessert, Matthew having recommended (but not ordered for) Dominic the house special, waffles strewn with a splash of red berries and topped with a fat dollop of cream. Matthew pops a strawberry in his mouth before smiling. “Go on then. Eat up.”

Smiling shyly, Dominic mirrors him. He swallows down the sweet mouthful with relish. “So,” he begins, making eye contact across the table, watching the subtle spark in Matthew’s eyes dance. “What’s next, then? After this?”

Matthew’s smile tugs up mischieviously. “What do you think?”

“Are we going out again? I mean, if we’re doing the whole first night over again...”

“Can’t really go much harder than we already have, Dominic. If anything, we could go to a nice little jazz club out of the way, pick up some E or something to make it pass nicely, but...” Matthew’s eyes flash to his watch. “The night’s still young. Want to head back to mine?”

No matter how out of character Matthew is acting tonight, Dominic can always recognise that certain glint in Matthew’s eye that makes him feel like he’s a slab of meat waiting to be devoured.

And Dominic loves it, every time.

“Which one of ‘yours’ would that be?”

“Islington. Your favourite.”

He closes his eyes and savours the memories of that house, the largest, the most grandiose of all of their haunts. The bed, so vast, so soft. Waking up to the lavish canopy as the roof over his head. The perfect sheets. The wide windows gaping beams of white light over them in the morning. He dares to imagine the warmth of Matthew’s arms circling his waist as he blinks awake, the murmur of shallow sleeping breaths by his ear.

He shouldn’t get so wound up over sentimental things, he knows he shouldn’t. But once the image has wormed its way into his brain, he can’t bring himself to kill it. Not when Matthew is looking at him like that, his grin promising all that and more.

“I think Islington is my favourite too, actually,” Matthew says, chasing a strawberry around his bowl with his spoon. “Lots of space I haven’t really done anything with, lots of potential. One of the spare bedrooms would make a great nursery.”

The dessert spoon clatters out of Dominic’s trembling fingers.

“Excuse me?”

“What?” Matthew blinks innocently.

“Where’s that come from?” he gasps. “I thought you _hated_ kids.”

“Well, you know. What you said yesterday. Got me thinking.” He hums to himself. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. Besides, I am getting on a bit. Must further my legacy some way or another, hm? Can’t be gallivanting around London like a playboy for the rest of my life. Got to settle down some day.”

Dominic licks his lips. “Well, I’m sure you won’t struggle to find a pretty girl to marry,” he says, fingers tightening around the spoon once more, allowing the dull edge of the metal to cut into his skin.

Matthew shakes his head, a soft smile on his lips. “Come on, let me get the bill and let’s go home.”

_Home_. The word buzzes pleasantly in his ear. Our _home_.

Dominic’s heart is beating fast in his chest as he follows Matthew out of the restaurant, a new perspective on the man leading him towards the doors and the life they might begin to create together. He feels light and happy, possibly happier than he’s ever been.

He feels it before he hears it, the crack of a gunshot that he’d thought he’d forgotten years ago, in another place and another time before Matthew was at his side. As he falls to the ground, Matthew swings into his vision, and for a moment he’s still so happy that he managed to take the shot for Matthew. He tries to shout at him to take cover, but he’s already running, and Dominic feels at peace, because he has saved Matthew.

_The day it’s truly rewarding is the day you take a bullet for me, sunshine._

Dominic smiles.


	2. Chapter 2

The lights are far too bright. That’s the first thing he thinks when he wakes up. Then, he wonders where he is. It smells almost too clean. His hand prickles with pins-and-needles. Indignantly, he shifts under the sheets, suddenly feeling a nauseating tug of pain in his upper right thigh, falling back weakly to the bed with a groan.

He was shot. He took a bullet for C outside the restaurant.

_Where’s Matt?_

His chest heaves with unsteady breath. He can’t stand the not knowing. He should get out of bed, he should do something. He can’t just sit here not knowing. His legs are shaking. Could he even walk if he managed to stand? An incessant bleeping at his side reminds him to calm down, to try to breathe normally. His eyes dart around the room, looking for escape, when a nurse comes in, all curves and warm smiles.

“Dominic, you’re awake,” she coos, as if it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her. “I need to take some vitals, but after that I can permit you a visitor. He’s waiting outside, actually.”

_Matthew_ , Dominic thinks, and he nods minutely, licking his cracked lips. The nurse fusses around him as he sinks back into the starched pillows, happy in the knowledge that Matthew survived the attack and is probably already plotting his revenge. Unless he had already exacted it. “How long...” Dominic manages to squeak out, tongue feeling like cotton in his mouth.

“Only three days. You were taken straight to surgery. You’re going to be alright, but there’s some bad muscular damage in your leg. You’ll probably need a cane once you’re out of bed.”

“Oh,” he burbles, hardly registering the information as it washes over him. “Right. Can I see--?”

“Of course!” she grins, clapping her hands together. “I’ll send him in immediately, if you’re ready.”

She slips away, and Dominic makes his best effort to sit upright in bed. He must look like hell, but he tries not to let it bother him, allowing a rather pained smile to creep onto his face. _He’s alive. That’s all that matters._ _We made it, both of us_. He can almost grasp the future he craves so much between his fingers. He can’t remember the last time he was this happy to see him.

A hand gently shoves the door open, and a tall man - far too tall, Dominic decides - strides in.

Dominic’s face falls. The room feels strange, small, with this giant smiling benignly at him, as if suddenly he’s dreaming. He’s all alone in the ward save for the stranger looming over him, so unfamiliar, so _not Matt_.

“Dominic,” the stranger says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Who are you?” he blurts. It sounds rude, but he’s so heavy with disappointment that he can hardly care. “Where’s Matt?”

The stranger’s expression does not change at all, and Dominic gets the sickening feeling that the man before him may not be a friend. “He’s in a meeting,” he says, and his tone implies the end of the conversation. “May I sit?” the stranger asks, before sitting down in the plastic chair at Dominic’s side, legs parted and hands clasped together, leaning forward. “My name is Chris. Christopher Wolstenholme. I work in another branch of SIS.”

“Right,” Dominic gapes. “Do... do I know you?”

Chris allows a smile to cross his face. “You don’t. But you will. I was the one who got you this ward, moved all the other patients across the hospital. You’re quite important, Dominic, more important than you realise you are.”

Dominic feels as if his skin is itching, and he tries to suck in air that won’t go down his throat. “Who are you?” he asks. “I want Matt here, why isn’t he here?” he demands, hating the fear creeping into his voice.

Chris sighs, reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulling out a business card. “I want to be your friend, Dominic,” he says slowly, as if his brain was affected by the incident, too. “If you ever need a favour that you can’t visit someone on civvy street for, you can come see me.” He places the card on the tray at the side of Dominic’s bed, and when their eyes meet they share a look. Chris gets to his feet. “I wish you a speedy recovery, Dominic. With Matthew as he is, you’ll need it.”

Chris strides from the room with Dominic gaping after him. He fumbles with the business card in one shaking hand, simply a name and a landline number embossed on the card. He moves to ask after him one last time, but he is alone in the room once more.

_Matthew’s alive. That’s all that matters. He’ll be here to visit, soon enough._

He sinks back into the pillows.

*

The change of pace throws Dominic off kilter completely. He hates being stuck in bed, eating food he knows he can’t yet burn off, watching television he doesn’t care for. The only respite is the occupational therapist visiting after the first week, brandishing a cane and a strict set of instructions.

Of course, Dominic breaks the rules and spends endless days shuffling up and down the hospital corridors, gritting his teeth through the pain but distantly elated that he’s able to move again. He only stops when two male nurses haul him back to bed, threatening to use restraints if he doesn’t keep still. (Apparently, the use of restraint “amongst other things” had already been pre-agreed with Chris. Dominic likes him less every day).

It’s only two weeks later, at the end of a phone call to his parents, that Dominic sees Matthew again. Dominic had been scowling at Jeremy Kyle on the television when he strode in through the door.

“God, this place smells like piss.”

Dominic has never loved him more than in this moment.

“Matt,” Dominic says, not quite believing that Matthew is here, poking around his room as if he’s the hotel inspector himself. “Why didn’t you visit?”

Matthew looks to Dominic for the first time, only just noticing the patient in the bed. “I was busy, Dominic. Intelligence doesn’t just run itself, you know,” he snaps, and Dominic shrinks back into the pillows. Matthew’s face falls imperceptibly, and he steps closer to the bed, sinking into the chair. “I had to find out who did this to you.”

“Who?” Dominic mouths but doesn’t voice, eyes searching Matthew’s for answers he knows he won’t find.

“I’ve sorted them out now, you don’t need to worry. Someone who thought they could take out an old vendetta on me,” Matthew says, sitting back and looking around the room. “Lucky to get a ward to yourself, you know. Corridor’s packed.”

Dominic’s hand twitches where it’s bunched in the bedsheet. He decides not to tell Matthew about Chris, the first person who actually visited him in hospital. “Yeah, really lucky,” he agrees, twisting the cotton between his fingers.

Matthew puts a wad of paper down on the tray, as Chris had put down his business card a week ago. “These are your discharge papers. Your OT tells me you’re doing well, so she’s happy to discharge you tomorrow, providing you come back to mine. We’ll go back to Islington, unfinished business and all,” Matthew smiles, and Dominic feels the absent warmth return to his chest.

“That sounds good,” he says, but it’s so much more. It’s a return to normalcy, or at least the life he’s happy to label as normal, now. It’s a return to Matthew, which is enough for him.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow,” Matthew beams, before standing to place a kiss on Dominic’s temple, whistling as he walks from the ward.

*

"I feel like a fucking old man," he grumbles, hobbling out of the hospital with cane in hand. Matthew waits at his side patiently, supporting him by the arm.

"If you think you're old, fuck knows how I feel," Matthew says with a huff, helping to ease Dominic down into the back of the waiting car. He joins him on the opposite side, Dominic feeling watched as the blue eyes dart across his face.

“I’ve got a surprise for you at home,” Matthew says, a small smile curling his lips up.

Dominic can’t help the smile that twitches onto his lips. For a moment, the pain is forgotten.

“Oh?”

Matthew nods.

“You gonna tell me what it is, then?”

“Dominic, you seem to fail to grasp the definition of _surprise_.”

The car moves off sharply, grazing the kerb, and bounces for a moment. It throws Dominic back in his seat, and he winces.

“Hey,” Matthew cuts in sharply, even Dominic jumping at the sudden severity in his voice, only to realise it’s aimed at the driver. “Will you watch it? I want him at mine in one piece.”

Dominic bites the inside of his cheek to hide his smile, but also to distract him from the feeling of his cock filling in his trousers at the sound of Matthew putting someone in their place. All this time together and he still finds the power that Matthew holds completely overwhelming, utterly exhilarating.

He watches the London scenery scroll by his window, having missed small pleasures like this after his time spent in hospital. He appreciates the finer things in life after it was nearly taken from him. It occurs to him, then, that he could very easily have died, had the bullet not lodged itself safely in his leg. His own mortality hadn’t really been one of his highest concerns. All of a sudden every moment feels that much more precious, and he nudges Matthew’s hand, pleased to find it happily linking fingers with his.

He watches a child running down the pavement outside, appreciates the smell of the leather seats he sits on, feels Matthew’s breath ghosting across his neck.

“You might be able to _guess_ what kind of surprise it is, though,” tumbles into his ear, hot and dark, and Dominic groans out loud.

“Will I like it?”

“I’m certain you will,” he whispers, practically purring into Dominic’s ear. The bodyguard struggles to hold back the ensuing shudder. “Men have killed for less from me.”

Dominic swallows thickly, Matthew’s hand skirting over the very top of his injured thigh. “Well,” he begins shakily. “I almost died for you, is that enough?”

“More than enough.”

Matthew palms Dominic’s cock through his loose trousers. Dominic can’t take his eyes off the lips that are so terribly close, lingering by his cheek, the breaths from between them shallow and husky.

“Good to see that the most important part of you is safe and sound,” Matthew smirks, applying more pressure. “After your heart, of course,”  he adds a beat later, but Dominic simply licks his lips as Matthew continues his ministrations. “Good puppy, so hard for me.”

Every one of Matthew’s touches is simultaneously too little and far too much; the longest they’d ever been without sexual contact was two days if that, and the two weeks had stretched on endlessly for Dominic, unable to sneak in a quick wank with a nurse or another checking in on him every few moments. The resurfacing of the old pet name made Dominic’s toes curl in his socks, and Matthew’s hand cover his mouth after a particularly loud moan.

“Quiet for me, you can scream the house down in a minute. You will, with this surprise,” Matthew says with a smirk.

The rest of the ride is, in a word, torturous. Dominic can’t bear the teasing, and the waiting, and the riddles. He needs his release, and he needs it now, and every single one of Matthew’s heavily veiled clues are driving him up the wall. By the time they arrive at the house, Dominic’s almost forgotten his cane, clambering out of the car eagerly and almost falling on his face before Matthew reaches to steady him.

“Easy now,” he warns him, resting his hands on his waist. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

Matthew helps Dominic through the front gate, leading him like a dog across the neat lawn, and the fuschia bushes, and the hanging baskets by the front door. Dominic has to smile. Matthew has told him, time and again, how much care he takes of his garden. He has no idea where his charge finds the time - perhaps he hires someone - but it always makes him titter, to think about Matthew’s fondness for flowers. He would never have guessed. But he supposes there are lots of things he doesn’t know about Matthew, and perhaps never will.

The white porch of the Islington house swallows them, the three-storey house eager to be explored as always. Dominic has always loved it. There’s something so lavish about it; it is the one of Matthew’s haunts that is the most decorative, the least minimal, the most fun. He likes to think all the sleek lounges and scuzzy flats he’s seen elsewhere are just part of his image; he wants to look cool, he wants to look like he doesn’t have a heart. But Dominic reckons this place alone truly reflects Matthew’s innermost core. Cosy. Welcoming. Large enough for a family. That’s why it’s his favourite. He can’t think of a place on earth he’d rather be.

Through the hall. Up the stairs like a pair of excited children. Past the yawning window, and the vase of roses on the sill. Through the door into the master bedroom, tripping on the rug on the way in, fingers already fumbling with buttonholes.

“Steady, now,” Matthew says softly into Dominic’s ear, only spurring him to try to undress his charge faster, leaning on his bad leg in the process and whimpering. “I bet you must feel so grim after all that time in hospital. How about you take a nice hot bath?” he suggests in the tone he uses where it’s not quite a suggestion.

“But I want you,” Dominic mumbles into the hot skin of Matthew’s neck, just above the collar of his shirt. Matthew laughs, extricating himself from Dominic’s embrace.

“I can wait. The bath the housemaid ran won’t,” Matthew says, guiding Dominic through into a ensuite that’s probably as big as Dominic’s bedroom in his flat. Steam still rises from the bath, and Dominic’s resolve wavers at the sight of it. “Go on. I can rewrap your bandage afterwards.”

Dominic pulls his shirt over his head, his torso unmarred by the shooting but still marked by the scar Matthew put there, nearly six months ago now. “Who says you know anything about treating wounds?”

“Why do you think my scar healed so badly?” Matthew asks in retort, and the conversation is closed, Dominic having gleaned very little information from it. Matthew’s hands are at his waist, pulling the elastic of the tracksuit bottoms away carefully, so not as to even lightly graze the wound, and stooping to lower them to the floor. As he removes the old bandage, he presses a kiss just above Dominic’s knee, so feather-light that the bodyguard could have dreamt it, and removes his boxers in the same tentative fashion.

“You don’t want all the bubbles to disappear, do you?” Matthew sniggers, a hand coiling around Dominic’s side, gently urging him toward the water. Dominic cannot suppress a grin. It _does_ look inviting.

He dips his toes in, looking for Matthew’s nod of approval, and sinks into the embrace of the water with a sigh. Whatever pain he feels from movement is immediately neutralised by the heat, and he lies back, pacified. The aroma rising from the water is sublime.

He can feel Matthew hovering at the edge of the bathtub, making no move to get in even though it’s plenty big enough for both of them. “Are you getting in, too?” Dominic asks, hearing the hopeful tone in his own voice and hating it, but only a little bit

Matthew takes off his suit jacket, putting over the closed lid of the toilet, then kneels next to the bath, rolling his shirt sleeves up in silence. He reaches behind Dominic, and a moment later he can feel the wet press of a washcloth against his back.

“Matthew...”

“Indulge me,” Matthew says, and even though it’s not a question Dominic finds that he can’t say no, because it’s rare that Matthew asks anything of him this insignificant, this easy to agree to. The bathroom is silent except for the sound of water trickling back into the bath as Matthew methodically washes Dominic’s back, before moving onto his chest, paying special attention to his scar.

“I can wash myself, you know,” Dominic says quietly, and the washcloth stops against his skin.

“I know, but I thought it would be nice for me to treat you, wouldn’t you agree?” Matthew says, almost whimsically, breezing over Dominic’s objection as if it had never been voiced. Without so much as hesitating, he moves on to gently dab Dominic’s arm, attempting to raise it and wash underneath. Dominic snatches it away.

“I’m not invalid,” Dominic snaps, meeting Matthew’s eyes and the heat instantly turning to ice within him. “I mean... I’m still alright. Yeah, I’m limping, but I got fucking shot, of course I’m going to limp. But I’ll be better,” Dominic promises softly, Matthew’s face so close to his own, expression unreadable. “I can still be there for you. Maybe not right now, but I can be. I’m still everything you need me to be.”

Matthew stares back at him with a strange, wan look on his face. What is that? Nausea? Fear? Concern?

He draws back sharply, dropping the washcloth into the bath with a heavy splash.

“Finish up here,” he says rigidly. “I’ll be waiting in the bedroom.” He coughs, and his expression brightens somewhat. “With your surprise.”

Dominic watches him go with a frown, feeling a little uneasy. That last detail seems to have been added as an afterthought. Still, as he sinks back into the heat of the bath, his mind drifts to what the surprise could be. Maybe a toy, or some kind of accessory? He presumed it was something sexual, otherwise Matthew wouldn’t have dragged him all the way to his bedroom to do it. Maybe it was something more illicit, like a new gun?

The thought of guns made Dominic’s stomach seize slightly.

He dared to very briefly toy with the idea of something more romantic, but he quashed that thought, before he wondered about it maybe being one of his fantasies. But no, he’d never shared them with Matthew; he’d never shown interest, and would probably be disgusted in them anyway.

Dominic blinks his eyes open to find himself half-hard. He bites his lip, realising the bath has lost all its allure now.

He climbs out of it with difficulty, regretting sending Matthew away just a little, reaching for a towel off the heated rack and patting himself dry. For a moment, he debates knotting it around his waist, before simply discarding it and limping back through into the bedroom, naked with his filling cock swinging between his legs.

“So what’s the surprise?” he grins, wishing he wasn’t quite so excited about the fact that Matthew had put thought into something for him. Matthew reclines on the bed in just his dark grey boxers, but Dominic can see the outline of his cock in them.

“Fucking puppy,” he says softly, but there’s a smile on his face. He sits up. “Let’s get that redressed, first.”

Matthew works quickly, skilled fingers wrapping a roll of bandage around Dominic’s thigh, putting gauze in the right place and securing it deftly. From there, his fingertips leave a scorching trail up towards his groin, his hands having constantly teased there during the dressing of his wound. Now, Dominic looks up to Matthew expectantly, finding the slightest crease of worry in between his eyebrows.

“Lay on your back,” Matthew says, and Dominic complies, lifting his bum when Matthew puts a pillow under there.  He doesn’t question it for a second. He meets Matthew’s eyes, immerses himself in them, trusts them.

Matthew arranges Dominic’s legs carefully, opening them but watching his face for any hint at pain, always having been able to read him like a book. Dominic looks down his torso to where his cock juts up dangerously close to Matthew’s lips, and his heart sinks as he realises his surprise is just a blow job, and that he’s been waiting all day for just this.

But then Matthew’s smirk disappears from view.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Dominic moans loudly, reaching up to grip the bars of the headboard as Matthew’s tongue licks at the most private part of him. He’d dreamt of this for so long that he’d resigned himself to never knowing this; Matthew, between his legs, tentatively mouthing as his hole as no one had ever done before. He’d never told him he wanted to try this - how did he know? He tries to rack his brains for an explanation, but he can’t find it in himself to remember as Matthew’s thumb gently works at him.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” Matthew says in a level tone, and Dominic just moans again, cock untouched but absolutely rigid. “I could make you filthy wet like a girl, eat you out until you’re begging for more.”

“Matthew,” Dominic breathes, toes curling when the very tip of Matthew’s tongue breaches him. “Fuck, God, fuck, Matthew, please--”

Matthew’s tongue, ever probing deeper, is joined by the tip of his thumb, stretching Dominic impossibly wide but it still isn’t enough. An image flashes through his mind, dreamlike, and he shouts out as Matthew exchanges a thumb for a finger, crooking it alongside his tongue.

“More, please.” Dominic is begging now, nearly sobbing, two weeks having been far too long to go without this, to go without surrendering himself completely to Matthew. “I need you to--”

“I’m here, I’ve got you,” Matthew says, and Dominic’s cock twitches, not before a tendril of warmth curls through his chest at the words. Matthew is shedding his boxers, on his knees before Dominic, cock in hand as he pumps it a few times before he lines himself up and pushes in slowly.

The burn is worse than usual, but Dominic relishes it, something primal in him loving the fact that Matthew did this to him, oddly organic. Matthew picks up a fast pace, biting his lip as he concentrates on pistoning in and out of Dominic’s pliant body. Dominic doesn’t even notice that the pain in his leg has flared up again as Matthew reaches for his cock, quickly tugging him into an orgasm that takes him entirely by surprise.

“Oh, my god,” Dominic pants, his eyes wandering the room aimlessly, his body falling limp to the sheets. “How… how did you know… ?”

“That you’d like it?” Matthew shrugs, a crooked smile playing on his lips. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m psychic.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

A pleasant heat descends on his body like a cloud. Like reassurance made tangible, comfort, peace. _It’s just like I imagined. It’s just like I hoped it would be._ He feels Matthew come to rest beside him, his hand against his ribs, resting there with the softest of touches. _Perfect._

They lie there for a long moment, neither finding the strength to clean up. Dominic doesn’t want the moment to end.

“Dominic.”

The name is not murmured dreamily in his ear. It’s a sharp admonishment, digging into his ribs like a sharp fingernail. He wriggles around uncomfortably, turning to face Matthew, who, to his surprise, is propped up on one elbow, looking down at him with a small, sober frown.

He can’t help but smile. Even his frowns are endearing.

“What is it?” he asks sleepily, maintaining a wide, bleary grin.

“Dominic,” his charge begins plainly, almost as if delivering a rehearsed speech. “I need someone who can be relied upon to be there - at my side - and to not leave it under any conditions. I need someone who is prepared for any misfortune that might befall me.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be here, Matt, I always will - “

“I don’t think you understand.”

Dominic stops in his tracks. He doesn’t like the look in Matthew’s eyes. He doesn’t like this at all.

“Consider your hospital stay your two weeks’ notice.”

“What?” Dominic gapes, sitting up, ignoring the pain in his leg. “What - what’s going on -”

“I’ll make sure the severance pay is with you within the next few days,” Matthew says, as if he doesn’t have Dominic’s come on his belly and he hasn’t just thoroughly tongued Dominic’s arsehole. He says it as if Dominic isn’t there at all. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Dominic,” he says in a voice that suggests it was anything but.

The bodyguard - well, the former bodyguard - is lost for words. There’s nothing in his head, nothing on his tongue for a moment or two.

“You’re… you’re firing me?!” He grimaces. “While we’re in _bed?_ ”

“Dominic, with that muscle damage, you hardly give me a choice.”

“But - wait,” he fumbles, his heart pounding. He looks to Matthew’s eyes for reassurance, and finds them empty. “We’re still… together, right? This doesn’t change that, does it?”

Matthew's lips remain tight, not even twitching. His eyes are steel.

His stomach drops. "...Matt?"


	3. Chapter 3

Two hours later, Dominic lies on his sofa in tracksuit bottoms and one of his hoodies from his time in the army, scrolling pointlessly through the teleshopping channels on Sky on mute and listening to the rain splattering against his window.

“Never thought I’d be doing this again,” he says out loud to the empty room, as he withdraws further in on himself, hugging a cushion to his chest. This is the worst he’s felt after a breakup for a long, long time. He hates to admit it, but he feels lonely. Horribly lonely. Who was that girl he saw once or twice before this whole rotten business got going? Stephanie? He could call her again, maybe. Though, he thinks, glancing down at himself, it’s hardly like he’s much of a catch at the moment. And it’s been so long since they last spoke. She’s probably forgotten he ever existed.

Matt’s fault. It’s his fault. If it weren’t for him, he’d still have friends, he’d still have a job, he’d still have a life.

Scowling, he scrolls through his phone, hovering over - oh, it was Sophie, not Stephanie - Sophie’s name for a moment, before deciding against it and flicking mindlessly through the photos. He groans the answer to a question on Pointless absentmindedly as it drones in the background, before grimacing at his own laziness and hauling himself out of the Dominic-shaped imprint in his sofa.

He gropes through the pile of letters collecting on his coffee table, barely having been in the flat even before he was in hospital, always at Matthew’s. Instead of finding a takeaway menu like he’d hoped, a small business card drops to the floor, and Dominic picks it up so he can throw it on the rubbish pile.

_Christopher Wolstenholme_ .

It seems like a lifetime ago, in a life when he was happy and actually looking forward to seeing Matthew again, instead of the cocktail of fury and betrayal he feels now. He flips the thick card over in his hands before he grabs his mobile again, punching the number in and dialling it before he can regret his decision.

He picks up on the third ring.

“Wolstenholme.”

“Hi, it’s, um, Dominic? Dominic Howard? You visited me in--”

“Never mind that. I’m very glad you called, actually. Are you at home?”

Dominic looks around his flat, remembering that he’d called  _home_ a house in Islington that couldn’t be more removed from this. “Yeah, I... yeah.”

“I take it Matthew’s dismissed you already?”

The words sting and Dominic’s throat closes up, as if he’s the butt of MI6’s joke and they were all waiting for this to happen. “You knew?” he squeaks out, feeling younger than he ever has in his life.

“I knew he was going to, I just didn’t realise he would be so quick about it. I presumed you would only be calling me because that had happened; after all, you would normally go to Matthew for anything else.”

Dominic swallows. “Who  _are_ you?” he asks, unable to keep the waver out of his voice. “How do you know all this about me?”

“I have my sources,” the voice at the other end of the phone says, and Dominic swears he can hear the smile.

“God, fuck you guys and your fucking secrecy,” Dominic says, exasperated, but when Christopher laughs, he feels a bit lighter. “I... I don’t know what to do now.”

“You need to go.”

“Excuse me?”

“Get out of London for a couple of days,” Chris says, voice urgent. “Go visit your parents, an ex-girlfriend, go anywhere but here. Matthew’s not finished with you, Dominic, and by that I don’t mean he’s about to ask you out for dinner again. He’s sending someone to your flat--”

“Are.... are you saying what I think you’re saying?” He almost laughs. “No. He’s fucked up my life enough for one day. He’s done with me, he doesn’t want to even know me, he wouldn’t go to those lengths.”

“Dominic, your life is in danger, you--”

“What life?” Dominic laughs, laughs for the first time in so long but it sounds bitter in his mouth. “What fucking life? He’s not going to send anyone, he’s fucking done with me. And if he does send someone, then they might as well get it over and fucking done with. I’m a cripple anyway, will hardly be a match. Thanks, Chris, but I’ll pass.”

Dominic doesn’t hang up, still a coward after all this time. Chris waits a few seconds before he speaks again.

“Come back to me in a week.”

The line goes dead. Dominic looks at his phone as if it will suddenly display all of the answers he needs or deserves, before putting it back down on the table in favour of holding his head in his hands. He rakes his hands through his hair, before slowly lying down on his side, staring blankly at the television.

He wakes abruptly, jolting on the sofa and head snapping around in the darkness. He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep, but his body is suddenly alert, a noise having woken him from his nap. His ears strain, able to hear the recognisable squeak of his bedroom door, at the opposite end of his flat.

He’s sure he’s hearing things. It can’t be the assassin Chris predicted, for lack of a better word, can it? Matthew isn’t that cold, isn’t that cruel.

Dominic isn’t that important.

The floorboards creak in the hallway.

The adrenaline pours through his veins as he realises it’s real, it’s happening, and it numbs both the pain in his leg and the ache in his chest. His hand automatically twitches for his pistol, but Matthew took it -  _of course he did -_  so he has to improvise. He grabs for the pizza cutter on the coffee table, from where he’d got in from Matthew’s and made himself pizza, numb and on autopilot. He remembers his training; it floods back to him in an instant. He bites his lip to distract from the pain in his leg as he rolls off the sofa into a crouch, still listening out for his assailant, still clutching the pizza cutter in his left hand.

There’s a shadow in the hall. His breath catches in his throat. He wouldn’t, would he?

What if it was Matthew himself?

The thought makes him shudder, and then tighten his grip on the pizza cutter. He shifts around the end of the sofa, peeking around to see a man - masked, pistol drawn, dressed in black - turn towards his kitchen for the briefest of moments.

It’s all Dominic needs.

Dominic pounces, quickly advancing on the man and grabbing his right wrist with his right hand, before pulling the pizza cutter’s blade roughly across his throat, not quite going as deep as he would like to. The silenced pistol fires twice as the man grunts and panics, before Dominic manages to wrench it out of his hands and fling it across the room, skittering on the kitchen tiles. He uses the momentum to bring his assailant to the floor, landing on him heavily when his leg gives out. Ducking a poorly aimed punch, he manages to pierce the man’s throat properly this time, dragging the blade through the flesh until blood starts to pour out.

He does it again, and again.

Earlier, he’d wanted to just give in, let his life be taken by this anonymous man working for Matthew, but now he feels the hatred boil in him, his anger towards Matthew manifesting. He feels the blood splattering on his face, sees the life start to go out of the man’s blue eyes, and a strange sense of déjà vu washes over him, calming him as he continually cuts the man’s throat until he’s no longer moving and the blood is no longer flowing.

Funny. He never got into close quarters combat in Iraq.

But he finds himself falling into the mindset though, as easily as if he’d been there all this time. He searches the man’s pockets, pulling out some change, a car key, a disposable mobile phone. Dominic sees the icon for a new message from an unsaved number. He opens the thread.

_14:39 - on for tonight. flat 3, 62 ickburgh rd, e5. blond male, unarmed_

_21:50 - is it done? - C_

Dominic stands up with difficulty, using the man’s unmoving chest to help push himself up off the slick floor. He glances at the man before he pads through into the living room, leaving bloody footprints on the floorboards. Phone still in hand, he opens a new text without even thinking.

22:35 -  _job done._

Sent. He slips the phone into his pocket, and sinks down into the sofa cushions.

It doesn’t really hit him at first, the realisation. It’s all just a scenario, a dream. Not a real thing. But suddenly his hands are shaking and his chest feels like it can’t expand, like whole weight of the world is pressing down on his lungs.

_He wanted me dead. He wanted to kill me._

He thinks of that morning. He thinks of Islington.

_I’m here. I’ve got you._

He feels sick. He reaches for the landline.

This time, he picks up on the first ring.

“That quick?” Chris asks.

“Yeah,” Dominic says, and his voice doesn’t sound like his own. “He doesn’t waste his time.” He pauses for a moment, feels the adrenaline draining from his system. “I need your help.”

“Dominic,” Chris says, and Dominic swears that he’s smiling.  “I thought you’d never ask.”

*

Within the hour, a quiet knock is heard at Dominic’s door, which shows no sign of forced entry. Dominic lets Chris’ men in with shame burning his cheeks; Matthew had remembered to ask for his gun back, but Dominic hadn’t been brave enough to ask for the flat keys he’d trusted his charge with.

The two men, similar in shape and build to Chris himself, make very light work of cleaning up Dominic’s kitchen and wrapping up the body. Dressed as paramedics, no one would bat an eyelid at the two men carrying a body bag out of Dominic’s flat at midnight.

“Wait,” he calls after them. One of the ‘paramedics’ throws him a grim look, and he swallows. “What am I supposed to do now?”

They share a glance, and one of them shrugs.

“I expect the boss might want to see you,” he grumbles.

“Right,” Dominic replies, “and how do I get to do that, exactly?”

“S’pose he can come with us.”

“As long as you don’t mind riding in the back with this poor bastard,” the other one says, nodding to the body bag on the floor by their feet.

Dominic glances down at it, remembering Iraq and the body he’d had to escort back to base. At least that time it had been a friend, and not an enemy. “I’ll get my coat.”

*

Dominic assumes it’s a rough part of town, but he doesn’t know for sure. The moment he got in the back, there was a blindfold over his eyes. But wherever he is, it’s all but deserted. Huge, featureless warehouses surround him on all sides. The air is cold and tastes like smoke.

One of the cronies nudges him towards the largest of the warehouses before they cart off the body again, leaving him completely alone in the car park. For a moment the only sound is the distant roar of the London traffic, somewhere in the darkness, and the coarse moan of the wind. Taking a deep lungful of the bitter air, he wanders in.

The warehouse is completely dark save for a splash of light oozing messily over perhaps two square metres of the enormous floorspace, and it is so quiet within that Dominic is scared to breathe. For perhaps the seventh or eighth time today, he feels deeply, horribly unsafe.

“Oh, so you did make it!”

He almost jumps out of his skin. The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. His heart thrums in his chest as he tries to place it, but in vain. A moment later, a figure steps into the single spotlight.

“For a moment there you had me scared something had happened, Dominic.”

“Your guys do look like the type who would knock me off and sell my organs on the black market,” Dominic says, a joke that should’ve been funny but his disposition makes it sound all wrong. He clenches his fists at his sides, flexing his fingers. He leans on his cane; he normally would’ve forgone it for a meeting like this as to not appear weak, but after the stresses of the day, he finds that he needs it more than even when he first started walking again.

Chris smiles playfully. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I deal in something else entirely.” He reaches out in the darkness for something unseen, retrieving what Dominic eventually recognises as a rather stiff-looking chair. “Do sit down. I can’t bear to see you wobbling around on that poor leg of yours.”

His kindness is strangely disturbing, Dominic thinks. He’s so used to Matthew’s volatility, his savage wit, his total disregard for other people’s feelings. So used to it that now he innately questions any form of politeness. He doesn’t move a muscle.

His host frowns plaintively at his blank response. “Please,” he grins, breaking into an affectionate laugh. “I’m not Matthew Bellamy.”

Dominic tenses, jutting his chin into the air for just a fraction of a second before slowly shuffling towards the chair, knuckles white around the handle of the cane. With a grunt, he lowers himself into the chair, air rushing from his lungs when relief floods his leg. “I hate him,” Dominic finds himself saying quietly into the silence that follows. “When I killed that man tonight... I...” Dominic looks into Chris’ eyes, seeing them full of understanding. “I wished it was him. I wish I could kill him a thousand times over. After I saved his  _life_ ...”

Chris coughs into his fist, grimacing. “Ah. Yes, about that…”

Dominic glares up at him. “What about it?”

“Well… Okay, how do I put this?” he ponders. “It’s such a horrible thing to have to tell someone. There really is no easy way.” He pauses for a breath, offering Dominic a smile which he’s sure is supposed to be reassuring, yet does nothing but put him on edge. “Let’s just say there was never a chance that bullet was going to get Bellamy. It wasn’t aimed at him in the first place.”

“So you’re saying... someone was trying to get  _me_ ?” Dominic asks, ice clenching around his stomach.

Chris sucks his teeth as if it were some kind of awkward faux pas. “I’m afraid so. Well,” he shrugs heavily. “Not just  _someone_ .”

Dominic blinks at him, the events of today and the past week and the past six months rushing up and drowning him. He thinks of Matthew’s fury, what seems like lifetimes ago now, when he’d brought up children in conversation. He remembers how quickly Matthew had changed his mind the next evening, taking him out for an expensive dinner just before he was shot.  _A last supper_ . He thinks of how Matthew avoided his questions about his assailant, how he hadn’t visited, how he’d dismissed him so easily...

“No,” Dominic says, finally, reluctantly, because he refuses to believe it. “Matthew--”

“Before you say it, yes he  _would_ do it,” Chris replies with unexpected sharpness, “and I  _know_ he would. Because he’s done it before. He’s done it again, and again, and again. And as much as I hate to break it to you,  _Dominic_ , you are no different from everyone who has come before. Why do you think he doesn’t talk about his exes?”

“He hasn’t had any,” Dominic replies immediately.

The laugh that follows is positively venomous. “Is  _that_ what he told you? Do you really believe that sort of rubbish?”

Dominic responds in the only way he can now, instinctively and defensively. “Well I can hardly go and fucking Google him, can I? Yeah, I took his word for it, and yeah, I’m paying the consequences. So what if he’s had people before me? It’s not like he wants me now, so he can shove his exes up his fucking  _arse_ for all I care.”

“I’m sure he would, if they weren’t all six feet underground.”

Dominic sits back in his seat, boneless. He knew that Matthew would sometimes get rid of someone who became inconvenient, but not someone who had loved him. “Oh,” Dominic says quietly, unable to gather his thoughts into a coherent response.

Chris adjusts his collar, his anger dying back a little. “I’m sorry,” he replies pleasantly. “I might’ve lost my temper for a moment there. But I’m afraid he’s something of a berserk button for me.”

A cold laugh escapes Dominic’s lips. “Don’t tell me you’re one of his exes.”

Chris doesn’t laugh. Dominic shuffles uncomfortably in his chair.

“Not quite,” he finally replies after a long, silent moment, quieter than ever before, “but we do have history.”


	4. Chapter 4

You might think you know Matthew Bellamy inside out, but I knew him right from the start.

To you, he’s never been anything else but _C_. But I knew him when he was just an upstart. Pompous little prick with an ego far too big for his station. I was above him in the pecking order, you know. I won’t pretend, with the benefit of hindsight, that I knew how far he was gonna go. Everyone thought he was just some big-headed twat, who’d party himself to death one day and fall off the radar. Nobody saw it coming. Nobody thought all that throwing his weight around would actually get him anywhere. But then, nobody realised at first just how clever he was, behind all that boasting he did.

He started getting promotions. Lots of promotions. And then he was shooting up the ladder like nobody’s business. At first, nobody questioned it. It was just Sod’s Law, that such an unpleasant little leech like him should get all the luck. But after a while, it was getting ridiculous. I, for one, couldn’t believe how fast he was climbing. So I started doing some digging.

Every time his career took another turn for the ridiculous, I would look into it. And that’s when things started getting very, very suspicious. It seemed the positions he was snapping up happened to always have been vacated quickly, and without prior warning. And the previous occupants of those positions? No trace of them anywhere. No way to contact them. They’d vanished off the face of the earth.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

I didn’t dare believe it. How could one man orchestrate a scheme like that, worming his way around the law, all unnoticed by every MI6 employee but myself? These people were supposed to be intelligence workers, for god’s sake. But I couldn’t sit back and let it happen, when the evidence was speaking volumes. I took it up with my boss, but he didn’t want to hear it. He completely overlooked my investigation. And I swear to god there was a gleam of fear in his eyes. He knew I was telling the truth, but he was too scared to chase it up. I remember leaving the office that night with a scowl on my face, lamenting the cowardice of my colleagues. Apparently I was the only brave one left.

That bravery was a mistake.

It was almost Christmas. I expected to return home to a clamouring crowd of children, asking if I had bought the tree yet, and if we could decorate it together, and if we could _please please_ open just one present early. My children, Alfie trying to be the man of the house, just twelve years old. Ava bossing him around just like her mother, they had the same eyes. Frankie and Ernie, best of friends even with Frankie about to start middle school and Ernie still toddling around. Four was enough, but when we found out Kelly was expecting again... I’ll treasure that moment for a long time. But back to the story. Christmas. Coming home from work. I opened the door, the house was silent.

No voices in the hall. No pattering footsteps. Not even the sizzling of the dinner in the kitchen.

I knew something was wrong immediately. Maybe Kelly had just taken them Christmas shopping, I thought, though I knew she hadn’t. She would have told me. But I was just clinging onto the hope that this could still be an ordinary night.

I paced into the hall, lying my briefcase to one side. There was a gun in my holster that day - I was so glad I’d managed to remember it - but to be honest, I was too terrified for my wife, for my children, to really be that relieved. My stomach was churning loudly, and all I could do was will it silently to stop. My finger was shaking on the trigger. I wasn’t on form at all, but who would be, knowing that there was someone here in my house, with _my family?_

There was nobody in the kitchen either.

Or rather, nobody that I could see.

He must have been hiding behind the door, the little bastard. Because next thing I knew there was one hand on my mouth, and another wrestling the gun from my hand. By the time I had managed to shove him off and turn to face him, Matthew Bellamy had a gun in each hand, both trained on me.

“You’ve been poking around where you’re not wanted, Wolstenholme.”

“What the _fuck_ are you doing here?!” I spat. I suppose I should have been more polite, considering the situation. But I was hardly thinking straight. “Where are my family?”

Matthew smiled, then, and my heart fucking stopped. I knew. I just knew.

“They’re all waiting for you in the living room,” he said, that smile still in place, eyes crinkled. “Why don’t we go see them?”

“No,” I gaped breathlessly, the tears already streaming down my cheeks. “Please - please don’t make me--”

The smile dropped from Matthew’s face, and his finger twitched on the trigger. “Come along, Christopher, little Ernie’s been _dying_ to see you.”

I heard it, then, through the ringing in my ears. High-pitched cries coming from the living room. _He’s alive_ , I thought to myself. _At least one of them is alive. It’s not all over yet._

I nodded, and began to take small steps towards the door. My hands felt numb as they creaked open the handle. He watched as I struggled to force it open. He knew I was paralysed with fear for what I’d find behind it.

Blood. _So much_ blood.

At first, all I could do was retch. The smell was sickening. But the sight - the sight of them all unmoving, pale, in such unnatural lifeless positions -- I couldn’t look. I could only crumble to the floor and weep. I wanted to tear him limb from limb, tear off his head or get shot to pieces trying. But my body wouldn’t comply.

“Pappy!”

I looked up, shaken out of my grief for the briefest of moments. Ernie, my sweet darling boy, sitting in a pool of blood, stretched his hands up to me. I lifted him up into my arms, sobbing into his tiny, warm body, Matthew still a presence over my shoulder.

“Such a touching scene.” he remarked, and I pulled my remaining son closer. He’d already taken the rest. He wasn’t getting Ernie, too.

“No,” I wailed. “Don’t - don’t hurt him -- “

“Oh, I won’t. It’s very important that he stays alive, you see. He’s a reminder.”

“A reminder?” I repeated dumbly.

“A reminder of what you’ve lost,” he grinned. “A reminder of what you can still lose.”

And Dominic, you think you hate him now after he broke your heart. You have no idea what kind of hate a man is capable of, until you lose your wife, your children, your _unborn child_ , everything you hold dear. I defined hatred that day with two simple words.

Matthew Bellamy.

“Do not try to stop me again,” he said slowly, keeping one of the pistols, my own, trained between my eyes. “You know what I’m capable of.”

And I let him leave. He sauntered out of my house without a care in the world, as if he hadn’t just massacred a man’s family in cold blood. I’d done nothing wrong. I’d committed no crime. All I’d wanted was justice.

And look what I got.

*

All Dominic can do is sit back in the chair, aghast. 

“I didn’t stop, though,” Chris continues, not waiting for a response. “I’ve been building up evidence against him for years. Your friend Rachel was helping until - well, until she _committed suicide_ , if you believe that.”

“But Ernie... he’s alright, though, isn’t he?” Dominic asks, his own problems fading, numbed for a moment by another’s pain.

Chris sighs, running a hand over his head. “He’s... bitter. I... I don’t keep secrets from him, I can’t, not after everything. When he was old enough... he’s ten now, about to start secondary school... I told him what had happened. He doesn’t understand why ‘that bad man’ did it, though, or why I can’t find a new mummy for him.” Chris swallows heavily, his hand curling into a fist where it sits on his leg. “I wanted him to know who took his mummy away.”

“I’ll kill him for you.”

Dominic doesn’t realise he’s said the words aloud until Chris looks up at him, blinking away the remnants of his memories. For the first time, Chris looks surprised.

“...You’ll what?”

“I’ll kill him,” Dominic says calmly, before standing up on wobbling legs. “I’ll kill him, I’ll fucking rip his head off his shoulders, the cunt, the liar, the scumbag piece of shit _fucker_ ,” Dominic roars, slamming his palm down on the table, feeling the blood thundering around his veins and feeling truly alive for the first time since he was shot. “He deserves to die a slow and painful death a hundred times over, a thousand times over, he--”

“Dominic,” Chris says with the tone of voice only fathers manage to master. Dominic refuses to sit down. “If you go off after him in your state, right now, you’ll end up in prison. There’s only so many times I can clean up after you, and _C_ is quite a prominent figure. Why the _fuck_ do you think I haven’t done it myself?”

“Because you have something to live for,” Dominic counters immediately, not backing down. “Some _one_ to live for.”

“Don’t be melodramatic--”

“I’m _not_ being fucking melodramatic!” Dominic shouts. “I’m offering to do you a fucking favour. I don’t care if I spend the rest of my days rotting away in  a prison cell, at least I know I finally killed that bastard, that he finally got what was coming to him. I’ll sit in my cell with a fucking _grin_ on my face for the next sixty years, remembering what Matthew Bellamy looked like when he took his final breath.”

“Dominic,” Chris sighs, breathing slowly. “Tempting as your offer is, I can’t let you go through with it. I’ve nearly got enough evidence, we’ll go through the proper system--”

“Yeah, ‘cause look how far the system fucking got you already! There’s no point in all that paperwork bollocks. That doesn’t work, not with Matt. He fucks around with it, he finds ways around it, we all fucking know that!” He falls back into his chair. “We’ve just got to take it into our own hands. We’ve got to kill him ourselves. There’s no other way to do it. Otherwise he’ll just find another loophole and escape and fuck up someone else’s life.”

“Fine.”

“What?” Dominic asks as Chris pulls his pistol out of his holster, throwing it onto the table. A set of car keys followed.

“Fine. Fucking go. Take my gun, take my car. He’s at his Islington address at the moment. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Dominic looks between the gun and Chris’ face, before pocketing the keys, snatching the pistol up with his free hand, the other leaning on his cane as he hobbles out of the room.

*

Dominic pulls up in the silver Mercedes outside the Islington house with his chest burning. For the most part, it’s the anger, the adrenaline, the anxiety. But it might also be the generous gulps of vodka he took twenty minutes ago to numb the pain in his leg, and to give him that extra bit of courage.

He thinks of all the laws he’s breaking. It almost makes him laugh.

There’s only one light on in the house. The bedroom. He grimaces. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he was in there getting the eating out of a lifetime.

Funny how quickly these things change.

Through the pretty garden. Up to the kitchen window. A trowel left in the soil - oh, yes, Matthew does love his gardening. It bursts messily through the single pane of glass.

The noise is deafening. Dominic wouldn’t be surprised if Matthew heard it. But nobody comes rushing downstairs, so perhaps he’s otherwise occupied. Dominic clambers in, slicing his arm on the jagged spikes on his way in, but barely flinching.

What’s a few drops of blood compared to everything else?

He stands in the blackness of the kitchen. There’s a sound upstairs. Someone moving around. He stalks into the hall, looking up into the yellow light on the landing. One silent step at a time, he approaches the bedroom.

He pauses outside the door, the door Matthew guided him through earlier, all smiles and laughter. He raises his gun, remembers room clearances, remembers how to kill a man with a twitch of his finger, something he’s done so many times it’s part of him now.

He listens.

“Matthew, _fuck_ , God, I--”

Dominic kicks the door open, takes half a second to identify the young man writhing underneath Matthew and shoots him between the eyes. Matthew lets out a scream, pulling out of the man (well, more of a boy, Dominic would say, but he’s nitpicking) as quickly as he can and clamouring for his pistol. Dominic fires a warning shot towards Matthew’s outstretched hand, feathers exploding from the mattress.

“Don’t you dare,” Dominic says slowly, surprisingly calmly, as he retrains his pistol between Matthew’s wide blue eyes.

“What the fuck?!” Matthew shrieks, bloodsplatter completely covering his face, kneeling naked on the bed. No condom, Dominic notices, with a kind of derision. He’s not sure why taht feels so important.

“Less than twenty four hours ago,” Dominic says, swallowing, “I was in that bed. And already, you’ve gone on to the next fucker on the list, the next _dickhead_ who’ll take your cock because he thinks he’s _special_.” The last word is spat, and he glares at Matthew, awaiting a response.

“You - “ Matthew begins, his silver tongue failing him for once. “You - you were dead --”

Dominic shakes his head.

“I’m not going to fucking _die_ just so you can go and shag some twink,” Dominic says, hands trembling infinitesmally. “I _loved_ you, you bastard. I loved you despite everything, despite the drugs, the bullshit, the people you’d killed. But I know now I was wrong,” Dominic says, laughing.

Matthew glares back at him. “ _Loved_ me?” A dry laugh. “Sorry, sunshine, but that’s your problem, not mine.”

“Shut the _fuck_ up!” Dominic shouts, changing his aim and firing.

Matthew wails, hands immediately clutching his upper thigh, his spine arching in agony, trying futilely to cover up the blood now pouring onto the bedsheets. Dominic continues speaking, only worried that Matthew will bleed out before he’s said his piece.

“I know what you’ve done. I know you’ve killed innocent people, you killed _children_ for fuck’s sake. And for what? For what? So it could end here, your bodyguard, the one who was meant to _protect_ you, about to put nine millimetres of lead between your eyes. How the tables have turned.”

Between pained breaths, Matthew manages to look down his nose at him, down the barrel of his gun. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Howard,” he winces. “Fucking do it, then. You’ve come this far. Finish this.”

Dominic hesitates.


End file.
